


don’t go (without me)

by seekrest



Series: Home for the Holidays [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Broken Promises, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, If Peter is Frodo then Ned is Sam, Jewish Peter Parker, Ned Leeds Needs a Hug, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Protective Ned Leeds, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekrest/pseuds/seekrest
Summary: Ned doesn’t have a lot of experience with losing people but he does know how much darker the world feels without Ben. He can’t even begin to compare it to how May and Peter feel, but he still gets it - enough to share in the memories. Enough to miss him so much it hurts.Enough to make a quiet promise to wherever Ben Parker might be that he won’t let them ever be alone.
Relationships: Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Series: Home for the Holidays [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2042758
Comments: 46
Kudos: 72





	don’t go (without me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blondsak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blondsak/gifts).



> This is part 1 of a series for blondsak, celebrating the bonds of family, friendship and love because she deserves every single one ❤️

“Hey May, is Peter home yet?” 

May smiles as she waves him in, Ned closing the apartment door behind him. He slips the key he has into his pocket and takes off his shoes, carefully balancing the platter in his hands. 

“Not yet, went down to Delmar’s to pick up some eggs. I thought he’d be here already but you know how he is,” May says with a tired smile, Ned smiling back at her as she nods towards him. 

“Is that _lumpia_?”

Ned grins, May looking just like Peter with how excited she is - something Ned knows objectively isn’t biologically possible but thinks all the same.

“Yep,” he says, carefully handing the platter over to her as May walks up to him. She takes it from him in one hand, balancing her other hand to give him a good squeeze and a kiss on his forehead. 

“ _Benedici tua madre_ ,” May says as Ned laughs, hugging her side until May releases him from her grip - almost bouncing to the kitchen as she speaks in the same mix of English and Italian that she always does when she’s excited. Ned picks up most of it, laughing to himself as he shrugs off his coat.

May continues to happily chatter about the _lumpia_ and some conversation she and his mom had earlier that Ned generally pays attention to - letting his mind wander as he takes in the Parker apartment, only for the shock to settle in when he realizes the person he’s looking for isn’t going to come walking in from the bedroom. 

It’s been four months since Ben died and Ned still can’t quite come to grips with it. He knew Ben nearly all his life, the first day he met Peter being the same day that he met Ben when he picked Peter up from school.

It was jarring still, in a way that Ned wasn’t sure how to process. It wasn’t as if he could _talk_ to Peter about it or even try and compare the grief that he feels with what May and Peter are going through. Ned’s eye catches on the menorah in the corner, a lump in his throat at the idea of the two of them spending a holiday without Ben.

The Leeds-Parker tradition, set from the very first holiday season that Peter and Ned became friends, always started out like this. Ned brings food to May and Peter’s, Peter doing the same the next weekend. They’d alternate, just as Ned and Peter swapped stories and presents: Ned bringing Peter to mass and to Christmas dinner and Ned joining May, Ben and Peter when they volunteered at FEAST - coming back to their apartment, lighting another candle on their menorah and eating their weight in _sufganiyot_ s. 

It strikes Ned then, that this year will be different. He doesn’t even know if May and Peter will _want_ to celebrate anything this year when it feels like there’s nothing to celebrate, much less participating in the same traditions that will only serve as a painful reminder of the one who is gone.

Ned can tell that May is trying her best, just as much as Peter is. Peter’s distant now in a way that bothers Ned, but it’s not as if he doesn’t understand. Ned wishes there was more that he could do, or say but he feels so painfully limited - not just in how to be there for his grieving family but in how to take control of his own. 

His eyes land on a picture on the wall, one that just makes his breath hitch when he sees Ben Parker’s smiling face. 

Ned doesn’t have a lot of experience with losing people but he does know how much darker the world feels without Ben. He can’t even begin to compare it to how May and Peter must feel, but he still gets it - enough to share in the memories. Enough to miss him so much it hurts. 

Enough to make a quiet promise to wherever Ben Parker might be that he won’t let them ever be alone. 

* * *

“Pete?” 

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about how you’ll die?”

Ned watches as Peter freezes at his desk, hand still holding a screwdriver in mid-air as he turns to Ned. 

Ned’s laying on the bottom bunk of Peter’s bed, trying to keep his face neutral as Peter stares back at him - eyes widening slightly as he searches Ned’s face.

“Uh…”

“I mean, not like _how_ but like… how,” Ned says, seeing the total and complete confusion on Peter’s face as he sits up.

“Is everything okay, man?” Peter asks gently, putting the screwdriver down and facing him. “Is it because of the stuff with your dad?”

“No, he’s fine,” Ned says dismissively, swinging his feet down to be planted more on the ground as he sits up more fully on Peter’s bed. “Doctor says he’s just gotta cut down on red meat which,” Ned shrugs, “you can guess how well that’s going.”

Peter lets out a huff that’s almost like a laugh but there’s a concern in his eyes that’s hard to ignore as his smile falls. 

“Is it cause of what happened with Shocker last week?” Peter asks quietly, Ned now pointedly ignoring Peter as he stares hard at the floor. 

He doesn’t answer, nor does he look up when he hears Peter stand from his desk - walking over to sit beside him on the bunk.

The bottom bunk squeaks when Peter sits down, bouncing slightly as Ned tries his hardest not to cry as he stares down at Peter’s messy floor.

The problem is that he doesn’t see Peter’s messy floor but the floor of the compound - white, linoleum floors that squeak when he walks just like the bunk bed. The smell of antiseptic. The beeping of monitors and dozens of wires that Ned can’t make sense of. 

Ned can’t look at Peter because if he does, he knows he won’t see his best friend as he looks now but rather the memory of what he’d looked like then - motionless and breathing through a tube. 

Ned never underestimated the kind of stuff Peter got into. He knew it way back in Washington, Peter begging for him to take off the safety protocols that Tony Stark had put in his suit. Peter being Spider-Man was cool as hell but it was also _dangerous_ \- dangerous in a way that was scary and terrifying and made Ned want to throw up when he thought about it too much.

Peter nudges Ned’s side with his elbow, forcing him to meet his eyes as Ned tries in vain to swallow the lump down in his throat. 

“I’m okay, man,” Peter says softly, Ned nodding once before Peter leans in - Ned immediately melting into the hug Peter freely gives.

Ned squeezes him tight, burrowing his head into Peter’s neck as Peter does the same. Ned’s always been glad that Peter’s just as free with physical affection and closeness just as his own family is - Peter solidifying his place in Ned’s life years and years ago. 

“Promise?” Ned whispers, feeling Peter laugh before squeezing tighter. 

“Promise” Peter says, voice muffled against his hair.

There’s a part of Ned that wants to make Peter promise that he’ll always be okay. That they’ll never be that close to losing him ever again. 

Ned doesn’t say it because he knows it’s a promise that he can’t ask of him. 

Just as he knows that it’s a promise that Peter can’t give. 

* * *

“Stop fidgeting.”

“I’m _not_ fidgeting,” Ned says, clearly fidgeting back and forth as MJ rolls her eyes and fixes his boutonniere. “I’m excited.”

“You’re fidgeting and if you don’t stop, I’m gonna end up poking you,” MJ says. She glares at him, Ned stifling back a laugh as she continues, “On purpose.”

“No you won’t,” Ned says cheerfully, earning an upturn of MJ’s lips as she smirks and replies, “No I won’t.”

Ned stops fidgeting long enough for MJ to finish what she’s doing, watching as she stands back and admires her handiwork. 

“Good?” he asks, MJ tilting her head as she squints at him up and down. 

“I still think you should’ve gone with the blue suit.” 

“I could’ve but,” Ned says with a smirk, motioning towards her and the black shimmering dress that she’s wearing, “than we wouldn’t have matched.”

“Matching is for losers,” MJ says without missing a beat, her words harsh even if her tone is not. Ned smiles at her, MJ smiling back as he replies, “Then I guess it fits.”

He puts his arm out in a mock gesture to carry her forward, earning an actual laugh from her as he dramatically says, “Shall we?” 

MJ rolls her eyes again, but Ned can see the humor in it - ticking another box for making her feel special on a night where she especially needed it. 

If Ned had his way, Peter would be the one taking MJ to prom - not him. It’d been a plan for the past three months and of course the week before, Peter ended up right back in the medbay. 

The fact that he was awake now did nothing to quell the fear in Ned’s gut of how close it had been, a part of him secretly agreeing with MJ that prom was stupid and cliche anyway and that they should skip out and watch movies in the medbay with Peter.

But then Ned had seen the look in Peter’s eyes, the guilt that he’d gotten hurt so badly _again_ , the guilt that he would make them miss out on yet another date. Ned took the hint and pushed for the two of them to go, promising that they had to be there if only so that they could report everything back to Peter. 

Ned knew he’d made the right decision when Peter shot him a grateful look and Ned knew MJ well enough by now to guess that she knew exactly what he was doing anyway and yet let him.

MJ knew as well as Ned did that this was just part of the deal - a secret exchange and a promise between friends.

A promise between Ned and Peter, solidarity between his oldest friend to make sure that Spider-Man didn’t have to always disrupt the normal things. 

A promise between Ned and MJ, solidarity with his newest best friend to make sure that Peter’s enormous guilt complex didn’t eat him alive. 

And a promise to himself - to look out for the two friends who so desperately refused to look out for themselves. 

If going to prom was something he could to help the both of them, in their own way, Ned would do it. 

He kept a lot of promises these days anyway. 

* * *

“You got everything settled then?”

“Yep, thanks again, Mr. Stark,” Ned says over the telephone, looking out over his brand new dorm room at MIT. 

“No thanks needed for something you earned, kid,” he hears Mr. Stark say, “September Foundation gives a lot of grants these days.” 

Ned laughs before saying, “Still, thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“You’re worse than Pete, I swear,” Mr. Stark says over the phone, Ned just grinning in return. 

“Peter didn’t even accept the grant so--”

“Don’t remind me,” Mr. Stark says before sighing loudly, Ned barely stifling back another laugh as he says, “Pepper says I need to work on boundaries but if that kid wasn’t such a pain my ass…”

Ned smiles at hearing the fond amusement in his voice, shaking his head before looking around his dorm room one more time. 

Ned wasn’t surprised that Peter chose to stay in the city for college, just as he wasn’t surprised that Peter had absolutely refused for Mr. Stark to pay for any of it. It’d been funny as hell to see the two of them “argue” about it for the better part of a year, much less appreciating the irony that Peter had encouraged Ned to take him up on accepting a “September grant” to pay for his room and board. 

“Why are you so okay with Ned taking it but not you?” He remembered MJ asking one time when they were all hanging out in his room, Ned knowing the answer even before said it but laughing all the same when he did.

“To fuck with him,” Peter said with a grin, MJ fist-bumping Peter before he pulled her into a kiss. 

The memory of that made him laugh, just as much as he knew Mr. Stark well enough to guess that he wouldn’t give up trying to give Peter some help. He almost considered having mercy on Mr. Stark to let him know that it was a joke, but if he knew him as well as he hoped - then Mr. Stark was in on it too. 

Ned had almost considered staying in the city too, to save on costs and to be closer to his family. But just as his mom and dad encouraged him to go for his dreams, Peter had made him promise that he would take the money and go to MIT, if that’s what he really wanted. 

“You trying to replace me for Flash?” Ned had joked when the two of them learned that Flash was also going to be attending ESU in the fall.

“Never,” Peter said seriously, “but I don’t want to hold you back, man.” 

“You’ll never be able to replace me,” Ned had said breezily, grinning at Peter who had smiled back. 

“ _Never,_ ” Peter replied, even if a part of Ned wished that Peter would reconsider staying in the first place. It wasn’t the money, or his grades or even being closer to May that stopped him from moving from the city.

Ned hadn’t been the only one to try and convince Peter to take a break but he’d been the most persistent - second only to the man on the other line on the phone it seemed. 

“Wish he was out there with you,” Mr. Stark finally says with a sigh, Ned smirking to himself as he plops down on his bed. 

“Yeah, me too,” Ned says quietly, the silence between them feeling comfortable even over the phone. If May Parker hadn’t been able to successfully convince Peter to put a pause on Spider-Man for the next few years then neither of them ever stood a chance. Wasn’t for lack of trying. 

The promise that the train ride was only four hours away and that they’d get to tag team together again during winter break only barely sated Ned’s concern, the one resolve he could give that Peter would try and promise to make it to then in one piece.

“You’ll tell me if you need anything right?” Mr. Stark says, bringing him out of his thoughts. “Anything at all?”

The earnestness in Mr. Stark’s voice doesn’t surprise him, just as much as the request doesn’t. Ned could guess that Mr. Stark wanted to be useful - to Peter and to Peter by proxy, even if Ned felt close enough to the man to understand that this was just how he showed affection to people.

From all he knew of Mr. Stark - publicly from being enamored with Iron Man for as long as he could remember and personally from seeing him red-eyed and dazed after hours and hours in the medbay - he didn’t do well without having a problem to solve or a fix in need of a solution. He was almost as bad as Peter, looking for something or someone to help.

The fact that he couldn’t expend that kind of energy on Peter, at least not in this particular way, wasn’t lost on Ned but he didn’t feel slighted - taking it for what it was and for understanding a little more about Tony Stark than he ever had when he was a kid. 

Ned had enough scholarships to cover most everything to MIT, much less the money that he and his parents had saved up to prepare. He didn’t really need Mr. Stark’s help.

Ned accepted the gift all the same. 

“Yeah,” he says to Mr. Stark, smiling to himself. “I will.” 

* * *

It’s quiet. 

Ned shivers, the cold feeling like it was sinking straight into his bones. He shouldn’t be out here, now - by himself. It was dark and his mom would be worried, the look on her face when he said he was going out telling him everything that he needed to know. 

Then again, Ned reasons - Peter shouldn’t be out here either.

“You promised me, you know,” Ned says quietly, grinding his teeth together as he stares at the headstone in front of him - the snow on the ground already covering the freshly dug dirt. 

Ned squeezes his eyes shut, trying and failing to stop the tears from falling only to open them and for his vision to be blurry. His throat constricts, swallowing in vain as he lets out of a huff.

“You’ve never been good at keeping your promises huh?” 

The thing is, Ned knew deep down that they’d always end up here. Countless memories of seeing Peter laid up in the medbay had proven that time and time again.

It still took the wind out of him, suckered him in the gut and left him breathless so much that he could barely see straight - blinking back tears as he forced himself to look at the headstone in front of him. 

Ned had hoped that they would’ve had more time, that Mr. Stark would’ve been able to pull off the impossible, that for _once_ the universe could give himself or the Parker’s a break.

All he had asked is for one thing, just _one_ — to make it to winter break in one piece. It had almost been a joke, something Ned now wishes he could go back and make Peter be serious about it. Even if there was a part of him that recognized that had it been a serious request, Peter never would’ve said it just as Ned wouldn’t have asked him of it. 

It doesn’t even feel real, like it _can’t_ be real, for all of Ned’s darkest nightmares to finally come true. 

Yet here he was, staring down the headstone of his best and oldest friend - Ned’s eyes drifting to the little headstone beside it with Ben’s inscription on it. 

The memory of the promise he gave out to Ben all those years ago comes running back to him, painful and visceral that can still feel it as if it were yesterday. The image of May staring at Peter’s casket as it was lowered into the ground was going to haunt Ned for years, shaking that away desperately as he tries to focus.

He hates that he knows how this feels now, hates that he’s the one who is always left behind. Hates that he’s the one always having to keep promises for people who won’t ever live to see them fulfilled. 

Ned sighs, closing his eyes again and searching for a courage that he’s not even sure he has - forcing his eyes open to look back to Peter’s grave.

The world feels so much darker without Peter, an ache in his lungs and a weight across his chest of all the memories that they’ll never get to make. 

He didn’t even know if May would want to celebrate the holidays now, much less MJ or Mr. Stark who looked just as miserable and lost as Ned feels. 

But he made a promise a long time ago, a promise that he clings to even if it hurts. 

A promise that even if Peter is no longer there to hear it, that Ned intends to keep. 

“I won’t let them be alone,” he whispers to the wind, hoping that someday, someone would finally make that promise to him. 


End file.
